It's my pleasure to share with you my recommended appointment for External Communications Leader: Sandra Ordonez. This position is not a board member position, but is rather a high-level volunteer staff position within OSM. More information on the roles and responsibilities of this position can be found on this public document at http://bit.ly/jzHDXI.

This email thread provides our leadership teams and OSM an opportunity to share your thoughts in this appointment. By providing a more transparent appointment process, I hope that we can more effectively build a process for selecting new leaders on our team, and enable our fellow leaders to have their questions answered as well.

It would please me greatly to see other teams do this as well for high-level appointments.

I'll keep this thread open until June 26, 2011 at 5pm ET (New York time), and then, unless there is significant reasons against it, I will officially appoint Sandra to the position of External Communications Leader within OSM.

1. What professional experience do you bring to this leadership position?

Seasoned Public Relations ProfessionalShe is a seasoned public relations professional with over 15 years of experience. She graduated from American University in 1997 with a double degree in Public Relations and International Studies. A closeted geek, she immediately combining her PR and web skills, simultaneously serving as webmaster and director of communications for several organizations. Sandra can effectively pitch reporters, create promotional materials, execute marketing campaigns, handle crisis communications, organize international conferences, board training and leadership cultivation, and much more.

Additionally, she has done this with international media and audiences thanks to her cross-cultural training, and language skills. (She speaks Spanish fluently, and has working knowledge of French and Portuguese).

Nonprofit and Starup ExperienceSandra has mostly worked for nonprofits and/or startups. She has has received extensive training on fundraising, nonprofit management and membership cultivation, but most importantly understands how to work in an environment with limited resources. This is greatly enhanced by her D.C. and New York context, considering these two cities are global leaders in nonprofit management training.

Seasoned Web ProfessionalIn regards to web, Sandra served as one of the first Web Producer for AOL Time Warner, helping them launch their first websites for Book-of-the-Month Club. She worked for Wikipedia, where she became familiar with the worlds of open source and free culture. Most recently, she creates websites and digital strategies for diverse organizations, which includes SEO, SEM, social media, etc. Her two most recent clients include: The New School University, The African American Policy Forum. Additionally, she has recently taken a job with Truthout.org, serving as their Manager of Technology and Community Outreach. She also routinely writes for PBS Mediashift, an online pub for journalists and new media professionals.

Joomla Sandra began using Joomla in 2007, when she became a full-time communications/web/digital strategy consultant. In fact, her tag has been: Web chic who hearts joomla and collaboration :)

Use my communications and nonprofit management expertise to help joomla org get to the next step.

Introduce more audiences to Joomla, and make sure we are properly cultivating existing audiences.

Help the joomla community have smoohter processes in regards to communications, and provide them with the tools they need to so they can become more self reliant and "own" their messaging. (ie, for example, find and train people in different regions so they can serve as "PR reps" for their local media.)

4. How will you build/sustain a team of volunteers that will aid your efforts?

I'm a communicator :) I love people and I LOVEEE collaboration. Many times i find volunteers seem to pop up if you create an environment that makes them worth their while. (ie, as volunteers, people want to be feel good and get something beneficial out of their experience.) and that makes it easy to volunteer in. (if the process is cumbersome, you are creating resistance, and people chose the path of least resistance.) So, designing a easy and intuitive volunteer communications "center' will be essential for me.

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